Use somebody
by Joy Booth
Summary: We all use people. Sometimes we just need to feel alive. AU after 2.11.


She walked into the hotel bar in jeans and loose fitting t shirt. The few people still around were all dressed in suits or business attire, but she didn't care. She wasn't here for them, she was here for him. As she sat down on the barstool next to him, he eyed her cautiously.

"The last time I saw you, you shot me..." He accused, though his face showed no particular emotion.

"You lived," she shrugged, seemingly unimpressed by his accusation.

"Did you come to finish the job?"

"No..." She answered. She gestured to the bartender, who quickly filled her order of a bottle of vodka and two shot glasses.

"How'd you find me?"

She looked at him like it was obvious, slid a shot glass in front of him and filled it practiced ease.

"Have a drink with me Ward, for old times sake," She said, raising her glass toward him.

"What's this about, Skye?" He asked, watching her carefully.

"Just drink the damn shot!" She growled, throwing back her own glass and slamming it on the bar. Ward followed suit though his glass didn't hit the bar with any real force.

"Skye..."

"We are not talking here, buddy," she glared at him dangerously and the vodka bottle in her hand showed ripples in the liquid as the bar gave a slight tremor. Ward put up his hands in surrender.

"If we aren't talking here, Skye, what exactly are we doing?"

"Drinking," she answered, refilling both of their glasses before she threw back another shot. Again, Ward dutifully, if somewhat curiously, followed suit. Over the next hour, they sat in complete silence, taking shots whenever she filled the glasses in front of them.

"You said that we weren't that different once," she finally said. "Do you really think I'm a monster?"

Ward considered her question for a moment.

"I think what I said was we could be monsters together. Most those super heroes Coulson loves so much, they had stories like ours. They suffered terrible trauma or abuse or some life altering thing that transformed them. The thing is, so did all the monsters. It is all about how you react to that transformation. Do you choose to be a monster and seek havoc and revenge, or do you let go of the past and become protector of those unable to protect themselves?"

"What if the choice isn't up to you?" She asked, her voice trembling.

"Skye," he reach out to stroke her cheek. "There is always a choice." The way he looked at her made her chest ache. She hated that she could never believe a word he said anymore. The way he made her feel though? It was at once suffocating and exhilarating. She knew it was wrong to track him down. She was using him for her own selfish needs, but after the way the team looked at her today, she just wanted to feel like someone wasn't afraid of her. Like there was one person in the world who wouldn't shy away from her touch.

Ward's hand had drifting to her own at some point and he was tracing little patterns in her palm as she thought. It was oddly relaxing, but she forced herself to break the contact.

"I have to, um you know, I have to be going," she pulled her hand away and stood up. "I have an early briefing."

"Skye, wait. What's all this about? Are you okay? Do you need help?" He asked. His eyes darting up and down her body searching for the cause of her distress.

She smiled at him for the first time since walking into the bar.

"You were right, Ward. Turns out I _am_ the monster that parents warn their children about," she laughed humorlessly, turning to walk away. Ward followed at a safe distance. He didn't want anything to happen to her, even if she had shot him.

She walked past the front desk to the elevator bank and waited for the next car. When the doors opened, she called to him over her shoulder.

"It would be easier to ride with me than to pretend you aren't following me and run up 10 flights of stairs."

He joined her in the elevator, without making eye contact.

"Just making sure you get to your room safe," he mumbled as the elevator made its creaking assent. Again, she laughed humorlessly, but made no further comment. When they got to her floor, they both stepped out. She wandered through the hall until she found her door and then pulled the key card from her boot.

"I guess this is goodnight," he said, wondering if he would ever see her again.

"Would whoever you're working for now notice if you went missing for the night?" She asked, as she stepped into her room.

Ward felt the walls closing in on him. It was a trap, it had to be. But apparently his anxiety read on his face, because Skye reached out for him.

"No one but me knows where you are. I just... I am going through something right now, and I needed to be with some one who..." She couldn't put it into words. He was the one person who couldn't or wouldn't judge her or try to _manage_ her.

"Whatever it is, I can help. Also, I don't really work _for_ anyone right now. I am between jobs. In case you hadn't heard, I got shot in the chest a few weeks ago, and I am still recovering, " he shrugged. His eyes were twinkling in that teasing way she loved. The next thing he knew he was pulled into her room and she was kissing with a passion that bordered on desperation. He worshiped her like she was the only woman in the world. Somehow he knew exactly what she needed. At some point as his mouth was exploring the tender flesh of her neck, he heard her whimpering.

"I can be good. I can be good." She kept repeating all the while her hands were working on liberating him from his pants. If he were a better man, he might have stopped to make sure that she really wanted this, but he knew he wasn't a good man. He knew he couldn't give her back the man she had fallen in love with on the bus, but he could love her and hope that his love was enough to keep her from shattering.

He whispered he loved her as they lay in the afterglow. She clung to him like a life raft in the middle of the ocean. So, he stroked her hair and kept whispering how good she was and how much he loved her until her breathing evened out and she fell asleep.

In morning she woke wit a start, her eyes immediately finding his.

"Did you sleep at all robot?" She asked, making his heart skip a beat.

"I got a few hours," he shrugged. "Do you want to talk about whatever's going on with you?"

"No!" She snapped, before modulating her tone. "I'm fine, Ward. I got a little flustered, but I'm fine now. I just need to let go last night."

"Did it help?" He asked hopefully.

"Yes," she admitted, avoiding his smug grin.

"Well then, I volunteer myself anytime you need to _let go_ in the future."

"You'd like that, wouldn't you?" She growled softly.

"I just want to help you, Skye. Whatever that looks like, whatever that means, I do love you, so if you need me I will help in any way I can."

For the first time, she believed him. Whatever else his flaws, and there were many, he loved her.

"I'll keep that in mind, but for now I have to get going," she said and she sat up and started to pull on yesterday's clothes.

"Will I see you again?" He asked as she walked to the door.

"I honestly don't know." Though she knew it was a lie.

A month later, she bumped into him at a weapons dump in Ecuador. He was working as a hired gun for some drug lord. She shot him with the new and improved night night pistol, before dragging his body out of danger and tucking two aspirin in his pocket for when he woke up. That stupid neurotoxic always gave her a terrible headache. When he woke up the next day and found the aspirin he smiled. He would have to find a new job as her team had destroyed/ confiscated all the drug lords weapons along with his compound and crops, but at least he knew she cared.

A week later she found him at a hotel bar in Jacksonville, Florida. They had a drink, before he saw the look in her eyes and led her to his room. She was gone when he woke up. A burner cell and a note were on the night stand.

_Grant,_

_Find a better boss. Next time I won't be there to protect you._

_Skye_

The next time he saw her, they were in Iceland following the trail of someone who could walk through solid objects. He was there helping recruit for Cal, and of course she was still with Coulson, but they were met as rivals more than enemies. In the end he watched the asset board the bus, but he thought she was probably better off. _Probably_.

The next night, he got a text on the burner. It was the name of a hotel, a time and date. He didn't even make it to the hotel bar before she pulled him into an elevator and started kissing him for all he was worth. This time it was different. Her kiss was more challenging than desperate. They fumbled for control. She didn't whimper when he moved to her neck. Instead, she nipped at the ticklish spot by his ear and then sucked at it until he was left trembling.

For almost a year she kept sending him dates and places. He both loved and hated it. He hated how weak he was, savoring every interaction, but he loved that sometimes she seemed to forget who he was or at least what he had done.

He knew that she was just using him, but he couldn't make himself care. At least she needed him. At least she would let him love her, even if it was just one night a month in a seedy hotel in Detroit or Oklahoma City or Milwaukee. That was all he could ask for.

Then one day he need her. He had gotten a tip on location of another obelisk. He was on his way to retrieve it when he was attacked by some of Cal's henchmen. They left him for dead, but he had survived worse. Still, he need help. He pulled out the burner and typed SOS and his location.

He was pretty shocked when he woke up in a hotel, wounds cleaned and dressed, a few hours later. He started to sit up, but she pushed him back down.

"You need to rest," she said, as she ran her hand over his forehead through his hair and over his shoulder.

"Cal and his goons are after another obelisk," he grunted, pushed up again.

"May and the team are already on it," she answered calmly.

"Then why are you here?" He asked, his head still spinning from blood loss.

"Because you needed me..." She answered again, avoiding his gaze.

"And?"

She sighed. "and because they don't want a chance exposure to the obelisk increasing my... Powers."

"What do you think?" he asked.

"What do you mean?"

"Do you think that you would have been an asset to the team?"

"Of course, but what if it did... you know make me... even **more** _inhuman."_

"From what Raina and your father said, I don't think it would, but even if it did, don't you think having someone on the mission who can actually touch the damn thing without dying would be a good idea?"

"Jemma made some special, like wonder gloves that she says should be able to allow anyone to touch the obelisk."

"And who exactly is going to be the one to test this theory?" he asked dubiously.

"May, I think... anyway, you needed me, so it all worked out," she shrugged, giving him a half-hearted smile. He raised an eyebrow at her.

"Don't look at me like that. Do you honestly think that someone wouldn't have come back to make sure you were dead if I hadn't rescued your ass?"

"Either way I think that you are using me as an excuse to make yourself feel better," he answered, for the first time alluding loosely to their entire bazaar (almost) relationship.

"Well you're alive, aren't you? Why do you even care?" she grumbled, turning to look out the window. The glass of the window shook slightly.

"I think you know why," he said slowing starting to stand and follow her across the room. "I think you know why and I think you just don't want to admit that I am the only one you can trust anymore."

"You lied to me about everything!" she screamed, turning on him quickly. The room pitched dangerously as her rage exploded. "Everything about you is a LIE. How can you be the only person I trust?"

"Skye, please, you have to calm down," he begged, cupping her face to gain eye contact, before running his hands down her cheeks, shoulders, arms and then down to her hands which he again rubbing soothing patterns in.

"Why does it have to be you?" she asked her voice trembling and she fought the tears welling in her eyes. He pulled her into tight hug and she tried desperately to pull herself together. She shouldn't trust him. She shouldn't care for him. Hell, even being here, harboring a fugitive could send her to jail for life, but she felt like him holding her was the only thing keeping her from shattering all over again. When she could finally breath again, she took a step back.

"So you're are the only one I can trust, that doesn't mean I like what you do, it just means that I can trust you to do certain things."

"Like be there for you? Tell you the truth? Trust you? Love you?" he offered, taking a step toward her with every question.

"Like work for the highest bidder. Kill without regret. Do whatever you have to do to survive," she countered, retreating with every step he took.

"But, also the other stuff?" he asked, looking at her with those stupid sincere eyes of his.

"But also the_ other _stuff," she grudgingly agreed, finally allowing him to close the distance.

"I can live with that, can you?" he asked.

"I don't want to think about what you've done. It was one thing when it was bad people who were planning to hurt good people, but now it's anyone who gets in the way of a mission. It was Fitz and Simmons and Hand and so many others. People we knew. It's just hard to accept that there wasn't a way you could have saved them."

"To be fair, I gave Fitz and Simmons their best chance. I tried," he said, though he couldn't quite look at her.

"I know. I know that. That is what makes this hard. I know there is a good man in there somewhere. I've seen it, but I've also seen the monster. I just wish... I wish I could tell what is the real you and what is the mask," she sighed.

"I don't even know anymore," he answered honestly.

"Who do you want to be?"

"I don't know," he sighed, moving away from her and slumping onto the bed. "Part of me wants to be the man that you see in me, but I also have a darkness. There is a part of me that wants to hurt people, to make them pay for what they've done."

She sat beside him and pulled his hand into her lap. "So, you are basically... Batman?" she laughed.

"Not quite," he laughed, amazed at her way of thinking.

"The thing is, May has killed people, lied to Coulson,and has a secret life. Simmons abandoned us to go undercover in Hydra. I mean, who knows what she did while she was there. Fitz changed lab results, to protect me, but still, he put the team in danger. Not to mention, Hunter and Mack work for this _new SHIELD. _No one is perfect, but with you... I need this time. I need a place where I can question things and be me without someone looking over my shoulder, without the judgment. I know that its more for you, but I can't be that right now. I care about you, but I am not in a place to have a relationship. I mean, I sucked at relationships when I was living in a van. Now I am an inhuman girl with trust issues and a father who's idea of a good time is turning more people into monsters. Oh, and every time I experience emotion, the earth shakes. It's a lot."

"But you do care about me," he shrugged as if the rest didn't matter, mostly because it didn't matter that much to him.

She rolled her eyes. "Yes, I care about you."

"Then, that's all that matters. As long as you need me, I'll be here for you, but I think you should tell them when they make stupid decisions like this. You have to stand up for yourself. If they were treating someone else like this, you wouldn't stand for it."

"It's easier to fight for other people. You know that."

"I know, but you are going to hate yourself if something happens to them while they are out there today."

The image of Tripp trying to reach for her flashed through her mind. "I know," she choked. "Will you do okay?"

"Of course, you are a pretty good doctor," he winked.

"I'm going to go then. They need me."

"I know. Will you text me tonight to let me know how it goes?"

"Yeah, and you know you can text if you ever..." she floundered a bit, but he understood.

"In a week or two I will be good as new. Maybe we can meet up in Florida again?"

"I will let you know when I can get away," she agreed. As she stood, she felt a little awkward. "Be safe out there," she said finally, before kissing him gently. Then she disappeared out the door.


End file.
